16:9 resolution question

[L7vanmatre]

I was going through my games and putting their settings down, as I just experienced framerate over visual quality.

I noticed that they never have any 16:9 resolution under 1280x720. They usually skip to 1024x768, then to 800x600. I guess this can be OK for games that stretch automatically, maybe, but for the games that don't and leave black bars...

Well, I was wondering why not something like 1152x648, or 1024x576? How come they never seem to be natively supported? Is it an inability, or do PCs with 16:9 usually go with 720p and higher?

[Washell]

The list of resolutions is provided to the game by the graphics driver. Add a custom resolution to that list and you're good to go. Just google your brand + custom resolution.

Originally posted by L7vanmatre:

Well, I was wondering why not something like 1152x648, or 1024x576? How come they never seem to be natively supported?

Because no company makes a display to which that resolution would be native.

[L7vanmatre]

Originally posted by Washell:

The list of resolutions is provided to the game by the graphics driver. Add a custom resolution to that list and you're good to go. Just google your brand + custom resolution.

Ahh, didn't know that. Neat stuff!

Is there any way I can learn more about drivers, btw? I've always been interested in what exactly what they are. Anything there is about computers, I want to know about it.

And I'll be sure to google that, hehe. :)

Originally posted by Washell:

Originally posted by L7vanmatre:

Well, I was wondering why not something like 1152x648, or 1024x576? How come they never seem to be natively supported?

Because no company makes a display to which that resolution would be native.

Ahh, makes sense! Thanks!

[God, owner of the Universe]

1.333... (4:3) resolutions: 640×480, 800×600, 960×720, 1024×768, 1280×960, 1400×1050, 1600×1200, 1856×1392, 1920×1440, 2048×1536

1.6 (16:10) resolutions: 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1600

1.777... (16:9) resolutions: 1024×576, 1152×648, 1280×720, 1600×900, 1920×1080 (HD), 2560×1440, 3840×2160 (UHD/4K)

Originally posted by L7vanmatre:

I was wondering why not something like 1152x648, or 1024x576? How come they never seem to be natively supported?

I assume it's due to the history of screen development. Most PC screens in the 1990s were 4:3 CRT, which could display any resolution with the same aspect ratio natively (otherwise with black bars), only restricted by resulting sharpness and max. pixel tact. According to Wikipedia, "In 2008 the computer industry started switching to 16:9 as the standard aspect ratio for monitors and laptops." Obviously, computers at the time were already capable of a lot higher resolutions than just 1024x768, which might be the reason that support for 16:9 is only widespread for higher such resolutions.

Btw., a game needn't offer all default resolutions supported by the driver. It might just present a hardcoded list of common resolutions regardless of the driver, or it might have such a list internally and then just present the entries that are also supported by the driver.

Anyway, you can define custom resolutions in most graphics card drivers today. Maybe a game won't pick up on those, but they often pick up (or just re-use) the current desktop resolution, so that might be an angle to try.